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ARRL In Action: What Have We Been Up To Lately?

By Dave Mello, W1DGM
Web Editor
January 11, 2002

This feature is a periodic update on what the ARRL is doing on behalf of its members. This installment covers the month of December.

Executive Vice President David Sumner, K1ZZ, in his Jan 2002 QST editorial "It Seems to Us" said: "Our most important objective for the June 2003 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-03) is an improved 40-meter band. We seek a band in which amateurs here in the Americas do not have to contend with high-powered broadcasters from Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific, and amateurs in the rest of the world can access the same 300 kHz of bandwidth that we enjoy here."

The US District Court for the Northern District of New York ordered the Saratoga Springs Planning Board to grant Randall J. Palmer, N2NVH, a special use permit for a 44-foot antenna support structure. ARRL Volunteer Counsel Albert J. Millus, WB2EQR, represented Palmer through the 3-year battle.

The Supreme Court of New Hampshire reversed a lower court ruling that ordered ARRL Life Member Jerry Muller, K0TV, of Hudson to dismantle towers he had erected on his property. ARRL New England Division Vice Director and Volunteer Counsel Mike Raisbeck, K1TWF, represented Muller. ARRL General Counsel Chris Imlay, W3KD, also filed an amicus brief on ARRL's behalf.

On the basis of nearly 5000 survey responses, the ARRL Novice Spectrum Study Committee has recommended that the CW Novice/Technician Plus subbands be eliminated as such, and that Novice and Tech Plus (or Technicians with Element 1 credit) licensees be permitted to operate CW on General-class 80, 40, 15 and 10-meter CW allocations at up to 200 W output. The committee recommended refarming the current Novice/Tech Plus subbands, in part to allow expansion of the phone allocations on 80, 40 and 15 meters. The complete report will be presented to the ARRL Board of Directors at its January meeting.

ARRL welcomes three new Section Managers: Susan Swiderski, AF4FO, for Georgia; David Stevens, KL7EB, for Alaska; and Kent Tiburski, K6FQ, for the San Diego Section.

Hundreds of Philadelphia-area residents visited the ARRL booth at the NBC10 Family TechFest, December 1-2.

A new clause in the ARRL Foundation, Inc scholarship application extends award eligibility to high school students who defer start of college in favor of military or other national service.

Members can now search the ARRL Hamfest and Convention Database on ARRLWeb using any of 5 criteria. A user can widen a search from Section to state level or to an entire Division--or by a key word if an event is not listed in the user's Section.

The Contest Branch is busiest at this time of year. Five contests were run in the past 10 weeks, and 3 more are scheduled for the next 8 weeks. The log-processing robot is operational and is automatically handling ARRL contest entries submitted via email. It was used in the Jan 5-6 RTTY Roundup. The robot can identify ARRL affiliated clubs that use Cabrillo-format log reporting.

Special operation W1AW/80--marking the 80th anniversary of the Amateur Transatlantic Tests--was a success. A total of 746 QSOs were made using SSB, CW, RTTY and PSK31 on 40, 20, 15, 10 and 6 meters.

Twelve Scouts from the Venture Crew DX (510) Pack from Massachusetts visited W1AW. All but one was licensed. Their activity included operations on 17, 15, 10 and 6 meters CW and SSB.

Digital Signal Processing Technology, a book by Doug Smith, KF6DX, and The 2002 ARRL Handbook are available for sale.

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